Reviews for The Superior Person's Book of Words

The average rating for The Superior Person's Book of Words based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-01-21 00:00:00 Jeffrey Prescott At first glance, Peter Bowler appears to represent the position I mocked in an earlier post, that command of a larger vocabulary is a means to social advancement, and can be acquired by reading a book full of fancy words. Fortunately, closer reading of his introduction to this short, amusing, book reveals a refreshing tongue-in-cheek attitude. I can imagine that the author's smart aleckness could lose its appeal over the long haul, but it works quite well in a book of this size (500 words defined; 178 pages). Mr Bowler is a self-professed logophile: ".. if words are weapons, they are also toys. They are fun to play with... " who doesn't take himself too seriously: "Pronunciations are not given ... The reader who genuinely wishes to equip himself with the vocabulary of a Superior Person should be prepared to submit to the intellectual discipline of finding out the pronunciations for himself." Two sample entries should be enough to convey the flavor of the book: abecedarian insult "Sir, you are an apogenous, bovaristic, coprolalial, dasypygal, excerebrose, facinorous, gnathonic, hircine, ithyphallic, jumentous, kyphotic, labrose, mephitic, napiform, oligophrenial, papuliferous, quisquilian, rebarbative, saponaceous, thersitical, unguinous, ventripotent, wlatsome, xylocephalous, yirning, zoophyte". Translation: "Sir, you are an impotent, conceited, obscene, hairy-buttocked, brainless, wicked, toadying, goatish, indecent, stable-smelling, hunchbacked, thick-lipped, stinking, turnip-shaped, feeble-minded, pimply, trashy, repellent, smarmy, foul-mouthed, greasy, gluttonous, loathsome, wooden-headed, whining, extremely low form of animal life." gralloch (verb): To disembowel a deer. From the Gaelic word for intestines. The existence of the term implies the prevalence of the act, which the author assumes to be one of the pastimes of the English upper classes, along with fox-chasing, train-spotting, and bird-murdering. Breadth of coverage: 3 out of 5 (only 500 words) Scholarship: 4 out of 5 (Bowler adopts a breezily authoritative tone, without necessarily providing all the details, but there are no obvious signs that he doesn't know his stuff) Usability: 3.5 out of 5. No guide to pronunciation, but points for including often-hilarious suggestions for use in a sentence, e.g., under 'limaceous' (sluglike) "Keep your hands to yourself, you limaceous endomorph!" Charm: 3.5 out of 5 Total: 14 out of 20. A solid 3.5-star effort, rounded up to 4 stars.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-09-23 00:00:00 Ted Shatlan One of my best friends gave me this book for my birthday (last year? Or the year before? Sometimes I think I'm a really bad friend) and I've been putting off reading it since I got it because I don't want to be disappointed - somehow I feel like I would be an even worse friend if I didn't like it. Because I usually find this type of book disappointing. One is fatigued by the endless parade of words, words that will hardly ever be used by anyone, words that if they are ever used will be met with an impenetrable wall of incomprehension. I find that depressing. Also the wit stops being funny after a while. My problem is that I have an urge to read every book from cover to cover. It's not that severe an urge, but impossible to restrain completely. Textbooks are the worst. It's hard to study effectively when you want to read every single word in the book, even the ones that don't relate to the course. So for this book, a compromise: I will read it from cover to cover, but only a few words each night before I go to bed. I will not immerse myself in it fully, for that will destroy its charm. Last night I read the introduction and the first word. Things are promising so far: the dust cover is pristine and uncreased, pure and white and it smells new. I can't remember the last time I read a brand new hardcover book. The tactile pleasure of the experience is so far more than enough to sustain my interest.